Day 1: Escape from LA
7 Aug
After a final group farewell dinner at Enterprise Fish (thanks everybody!), last night became a blur of last-minute packing/cleaning activity, which I finally wrapped up at about 1am. In my last night in my own bed for several months, I ended up getting about 45 minutes of sleep before waking up at 4:30. Ouch. Leaving my apartment at 5:10 this morning was surreal. I savored a last few minutes on my balcony in the morning quiet before the taxi arrived to take me to LAX.
The American Airlines terminal at LAX was shockingly busy when I arrived at 5:30. Even the business class and eticket lines were long, and moving slowly. I was sure to miss my 6:30 flight, so I jumped into the empty Exec Plat line and slipped to the check-in desk quickly without any drama. And then I had the pleasant surprise of finding that my upgrade request came through, so I managed 4 hours of quality sleep on the uneventful flight in business class.
The hour-long train journey though the hot, muggy New York afternoon from to my friend Ivan’s pad in Lower East Side was simple enough. I picked up a key from his doorman, and caught a nap while waiting for him to finish work. New York is a good bridge to the wider world from LA; it’s more dense, intense, loud, and “pungently perfumed” here. We had a mellow dinner at a French place a few blocks away, and we’re calling it an early night. I’m enjoying the views over the city from his guest room as I’m typing this. It’s a little different than my final views out to the Pacific from my balcony just over 12 hours ago…
I’ll spend the bulk of my next 2 days here in NYC doing administrative stuff I couldn’t get to before leaving Santa Monica; shutting down or reducing fees on services, and other stuff that’s harder to do from abroad. I’ll mix in a little sight seeing here as well. I fly on to Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday night.
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Better: Chrysler building or Empire State building? Chrysler, I think. Go see Richard Serra at MOMA, if you can. We miss you already!
more bigmike please. c’mon… 3 days in NYC? i want to know more, sooner.
While I’d love to post every day, I know that’s not going to happen. My goal is to post at least once a week (unless impossible, like when I’m hiking in Nepal for 2 weeks). As noted in today’s site maintenance update, I’m experimenting with Twitter. Follow that content for what will hopefully be more frequent, short blurb updates.
That said, I should have a longer udpate from Sweden posted later today.
Hi Michael. Wow. I am impressed. You are having one great time. Linda